Chapter 422: Ch 422 : So this is what the Eerie of freedom means?
"Paimon!!!!"
Seeing Paimon sliced in half and falling from the air, Aether cried out in shock.
He dropped to his knees, cradling Paimon’s two broken halves in his arms, his face filled with agony...
At that moment, Paimon seemed not to have completely died yet.
With her final breath, she struggled to speak to Aether:
"Traveler..."
"As your guide... I won’t be able to keep my promise anymore..."
"From here on, you’ll have to walk the journey on your own..."
"Please, promise me you’ll take in all the sights along the way... and taste all the delicacies of every nation..."
"Goodbye... Traveler..."
With those last words, Paimon’s life faded completely, dying in Aether’s embrace...
"You damned Eerie!!!"
In the next instant, Aether roared in grief and fury, raising his one-handed sword and slashing straight toward Eula!
Until now, Aether had always believed that the purpose of his journey was to find his sister, to reunite with family...
But now, after losing Paimon, he truly realized—Paimon was not just his guide and companion, but an irreplaceable part of his life!!!
Yet, just as Aether’s strike was about to land on Eula, Su Yuan suddenly shouted:
"Aether! Stop!!"
Because at this moment, there was no longer any trace of Eerie power coming from Eula.
She stood there, expression blank, staring in shock at Paimon’s corpse...
The greatsword in her hands fell to the ground with a heavy clang—
Hearing Su Yuan’s shout and seeing Eula’s current state, Aether forcibly halted his swing.
His tear-streaked face was filled with conflicting emotions...
"This... what on earth is happening..." Eula muttered in disbelief, her voice trembling.
"Was it... was it me who killed Paimon?"
"No, Eula. This isn’t your fault..." Su Yuan spoke then, addressing both her and Aether.
"It was the Eerie... the Eerie killed Paimon..."
"Aether, let’s calm down first! What we need to do now is analyze why this situation even happened!"
"Yes... why did this happen?"
With Su Yuan’s persuasion, Aether gradually regained some composure.
Hugging Paimon’s bisected body tightly, he spoke in a low voice:
"We clearly tested it earlier—Eula was taking damage from elemental power. That should’ve meant she wasn’t under the Eerie’s control..."
"Could it be... the Eerie has already evolved to this extent?"
"That it can freely control the flow of its own corrupting power within the body, deliberately making certain parts vulnerable to elemental attacks?"
"This is unheard of! And how could Eula have even known that I was aiming for her shoulder at the time?"
"No... Aether," Su Yuan said firmly, "I don’t believe the Eerie has reached that level yet..."
Su Yuan pondered for a moment before speaking:
"Do you remember what my intelligence report mentioned? It said that the Eerie in Mondstadt seemed to be a kind of freer Eerie..."
"And this so-called ’freedom’—I never had a good idea of how exactly it manifested..."
"But now, I have a hypothesis..."
"Do you remember Diona? After she killed Mr. Draff while he was drunk, by all reasoning, she should have already fulfilled the conditions for Eerie state, and thus should have reverted immediately. Yet instead, she only returned to normal after some time had passed..."
"And in Eula’s case, I saw it very clearly—at the very instant Paimon breathed her last, she immediately reverted from her Eerie state..."
Aether was no fool.
Though his emotions were in turmoil because of Paimon’s death, he quickly grasped Su Yuan’s meaning and guessed what he was trying to say:
"Su Yuan, what you mean is... the ’freedom’ of Mondstadt’s Eerie lies in the timing of entering and exiting their Eerie state?"
"Mm. That’s right—this is indeed my conjecture." Su Yuan nodded in affirmation.
"The moment Eerie state is triggered, the entry into it isn’t necessarily immediate... And even after completing the conditions of Eerie state, the exit from it isn’t immediate either..."
"This delayed interval—that is the so-called ’freedom’ of Mondstadt’s Eerie!!!"
"So, when we ran our test earlier—even though Eula had already triggered her conditions for Eerie state, because of this freedom of delay, she hadn’t yet entered her Eerie state?"
Aether sighed, his expression tinged with sorrow.
"Su Yuan, your intel really wasn’t wrong... I should have trusted you unwaveringly from the start..."
"If I had stayed alert the whole time, maybe Paimon wouldn’t have..."
Seeing Aether’s grief-stricken and self-blaming expression, Su Yuan also felt a deep ache in his heart.
He spoke up to comfort him:
"No... Aether, part of this is my fault as well..."
"When faced with the intel I’d gathered, I should have had more faith in it..."
"But don’t worry—Paimon won’t have died in vain. I will definitely bring her back..."
"Sigh... Su Yuan, thank you for your kind intentions..." Aether let out a faint sigh.
"But I know very well—once someone dies, there is no coming back. Besides, we’re not in Liyue right now, and this isn’t the Border of Life and Death..."
"Paimon... she’s truly gone. There’s no bringing her back..."
Looking at Aether’s sorrowful state, Su Yuan wanted badly to tell him that he possessed the ability of Death Rewind—that once it was triggered, he could obtain vital information and even bring Paimon back...
But in the end, that was his most important trump card, and he couldn’t reveal it so easily...
Still, Su Yuan thought, Paimon is such an important companion...
And I still have 2.2 uses of Death Rewind left.
Using one for her would be worth it, wouldn’t it?
After all, Paimon’s death this time was largely due to me.
If I don’t bring her back, I’ll never find peace within myself...
The problem now was—how could he trigger Death Rewind without deliberately guiding someone to kill him, or taking his own life...?
"What exactly happened here?"
Just then, an anxious voice rang out.
Acting Grand Master Jean arrived at the scene with a small group of Knights of Favonius.
But at this moment, Jean’s complexion was pale, with heavy dark circles under her eyes—clearly, she hadn’t been able to rest properly for quite some time...
"I heard that some citizens came to the Knights of Favonius seeking help, saying there was a terrifying attack at the Good Hunter. Are you all alright? No one was injured, were they?"
Then Jean caught sight of Paimon’s bisected corpse lying lifeless on the ground.
She immediately gasped in shock:
"What?! There’s already a casualty? And it’s Paimon???"
Jean at once gave a stern order to the knights under her command:
"Paimon has been assassinated! Seal off the entire area!"
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